A Thousand Perils
by CrimesOfGrindelwald
Summary: Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch set off in the Negative Zone to find Doctor Strange, but the dimension holds a thousand perils...
1. Issue 1

The Negative Zone is a dangerous place. When it came into existence, it had nothing. Just antimatter. Eventually, creatures took up residence there! Life is typically benevolent and loving, but the craters of the Negative Zone hold a thousand perils…

Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch were floating above the ground, leading a few of the Children of Ootah through the Negative Zone to their civilization after they had become separated. Typically, the sorcerers could teleport right to the spot, being two of Earth's most powerful heroes, but being in another dimension altered their powers (not to mention, one of the Children they were escorting claimed to be allergic to teleportation). "Down there!" Wanda exclaimed, pointing to a stretch of fog-covered rocky land, much like Earth's very moon. "Quite the biblical homage, eh, Scarlet Witch?" Doctor Strange asked, looking over his shoulder at the group they were leading. "Stephen!" She chuckled and elbowed him in the ribs.

Hours of walking seemed to go by, with Doctor Strange occasionally checking their enchanted map to figure out where they were, and if they were heading in the right direction. Then! All of a sudden, the ground began to rumble beneath them! "What's happening?!"One of the Children cried out. They began to murmur and panic. "Children of Ootah, get back! Behind that boulder!" Scarlet Witch exclaimed, throwing a force field over the boulder, where they cowered in fear. She landed next to Strange, and from the crater came a monster…

The monster seemed to go on forever, until its entirety emerged from its crater. It was an enormous, green, scaly creature with a yellow stomach, red eyes, and gargantuan claws. "Doctor, what _is_ that terrible thing?!" Wanda exclaimed, eyes wide. "Truly a sight to behold!" Strange replied. Their eyes met, and they smirked. They had taken on worse before, after all, they were the most powerful sorcerers on Earth! 

"My hex power will stop it!" Wanda's hands glowed magneta and she fired her hex bolts at a cliff over the monster, bringing the debris down onto its head. The monster let out a roar to rival the Hulk's, and swung his hand toward her, attempting to claw the Mutant, who merely phased through it. From its other side, the monster felt something hit it. It was a sharp, burning pain. Strange had created an energy shield and flung it at the monster. "I've got to write Captain America a thank-you note for that trick!" He raised his yellow-gloved hands over his head and made a gesture. "MONSTER! If you do not want to leave us be, I will have no choice but to use force!" The monster's red eyes lit up, and he shot fire out of them, giving everything an orange glow. Strange only had a moment to think of a spell. Luckily, being the Sorcerer Supreme, he didn't require much time. He met eyes with Scarlet Witch, who nodded and made the same gesture. "Face the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon!" They both shouted. Thrown backward by the force of their spell, an enormous ice beam shot from their hands, extinguishing the monster's fire and encasing the creature in a coating of ice.

The two sorcerers flew down to the force field which housed the Children of Ootah. "Children! Are you alright?" They nodded and cheered for them, making the pair smile. "C'mon, we've got a long journey ahead of us." All seemed well, and they were ready to continue their journey when…The monster's eyes lit up, and the ice melted. The great green thing bolted toward them. Doctor Strange dashed to the front of the group, his hands illuminated purple, a large shield between them. "If you touch them, I will erase you from existence!" He declared in a magically amplified voice, booming with protectiveness and rage. The monster raised its hands in the air and slammed them to the ground. Wanda and the Children lost their footing and fell, but Strange?

The poor doctor was launched into the air, and seemed to disappear on an upper cliff. "STRANGE!" Exclaimed Wanda, dashing upward and flying all around the monster, firing hex bolts at it. Her eyes widened. The monster opened its mouth and screeched! The sound came in the form of white rings, and it was enough to make Wanda's ears ring and knock her out. The witch fell into the vastness of the Negative Zone, falling like a corpse.

 **Sometime later…**

The Scarlet Witch was exhausted, starving. "I've been in here for lord knows how long...I've managed to fight off these creatures so far but I can barely cast a spell now." She said weakly, her head hanging. Her hair was a mess, the ends singed off from a creature who had fire abilities. Her costume was damaged to the point where her legs were almost completely exposed, save for some remaining pink at the bottom. The red 'bathing suit', as Deadpool called it, was torn right cross her stomach, her gloves were fingerless, and her tiara was cracked. She was using all her energy just to keep herself alive. As she came cross a grassy knoll floating, she sat down, and yelped in pain, clutching her side. "Cracked ribs." Wanda muttered. Then, picking up her head, through her blurry vision, she saw it. "No…it can't be." She pushed off the knoll and floated upward toward a hexagonal metal gateway with a black-and-yellow door. Wanda's heart skipped a beat, which probably was not a great thing, considering her state, when she realized what it was. "Home." She said, hope in her voice. It was the Negative Zone portal in the lab of Avengers Mansion. Wanda pressed her hands hard into the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Can't phase through it…well, it's worth a try." The witch took a deep breath and used the last of her energy in one last move. The door glowed blood red, and a red trail snaked throughout the house, into all the rooms.

" _I'd rather sink than call BRAD for help!"_ The woman on TV exclaimed. "WHAT?!" Hawkeye jumped up from the couch, his bowl of popcorn flying off his lap. "Brad's a sailor, Jack is just a doctor!" He yelled at the soap opera. Then, on his purple boot, he felt something slightly ticklish. "JARVIS, your vacuum is on my-" He looked down and saw that it wasn't a vacuum, it was a glowing red line. "Foot?" Clint raised an eyebrow behind his cowl and grabbed his quiver form the couch. "Better take this in case of trouble." He looked around distrustfully, lips pursed in classic Hawkeye fashion. The archer followed the trail down to the lab, and turned on the light. "Iron Man? Banner? Giant-Man?" He called, but there was no answer. Instead, he saw the glow on the Negative Zone gateway. "Please, don't be a dragon." He punched the green 'open' button and the gateway opened to reveal a swirling blue portal.

Scarlet Witch felt an overwhelming sense of relief when the door finally opened, its distinctive hiss music to her ears. "YES!" She croaked, poking her head through the portal and grabbing onto the edge of it to pull herself forward. "Hi Clint...it's good to be back." With that, she passed out.

"Scarlet Witch! What are you doing in there?" He hooked his hands under her arms and pulled her the rest of the way out, slamming the red 'close' button. Hawkeye carried Wanda upstairs, laid her on her bed, and pulled up a chair. The archer _did_ have a heart, after all! He nodded off to sleep eventually. They'll both need the sleep, for tomorrow holds adventure…


	2. Issue 2

**Morning, Avengers Mansion…**

The Manhattan Avengers HQ was swimming in golden sunlight. JARVIS had already begun a 'nourishment protocol', so robot hands were hard at work in the downstairs kitchen. The sizzling of bacon and flipping of pancakes could be heard all throughout the house, but the real attraction was of course, the smell of bacon and coffee brewing. Pure comfort.

Inside the Scarlet Witch's bedroom, however, things were less than comfortable. The Mutant, her costume still torn and tattered, shot up from her slumber with a yelp! She looked around, and the comforting sense of relief washed over her when she realized where she was.

"Mornin." Hawkeye said with a yawn from the wooden chair beside her bed, not bothering to sit up any more than he was, his blue eyes still half-shut and his cowl dangling off the back of the chair.

"Hawkeye!" Wanda exclaimed, a wide smile on her face. "How nice of you to stay at my bedside, I must thank you, but where is everyone?" She asked. She felt like herself again, being back in her own dimension. What she didn't feel, however, were the other Avengers' presences.

"Yeah, yeah, don't mention it." Hawkeye folded his arms and smiled at her, now shifting to sit up. "The others are off in Asgard, or Sniffleheim or whatever it's called. There's a war between elves and ogres. Thor decided it was best if I didn't come along, y'know, because I act _so_ much like an elf." He rolled his eyes and looked sour.

Wanda laughed at his sentiment, her first laugh in lord knew how long. "I hope they're alright up there. Vizh and Pietro are there too?" Clint nodded. "Good…is that coffee I smell?"

 **Sometime later…**

After showering and magically repairing her costume, Wanda nearly dashed to the kitchen, almost knocking over a bust of T'Challa. "I thought speed was Quicksilver's mutant power, brown-eyes!" Clint joked, looking up from the fridge. "Don't forget, he and I share DNA, Robin Hood!" Wanda teased back, taking a seat at the wooden table and immediately piling her plate with pancakes and eggs, filling up a rather large cup with steaming hot Earl Grey tea.

Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye ate in silence for a few minutes, before Wanda finally picked her head up from her plate. "JARVIS, you always _do_ make the best pancakes." She complimented. "You'll fry my circuits if you keep complimenting me." The AI said.

The break of silence led Hawkeye to finally speak up. "So, why were you in the Negative Zone, all beat up, anyway? I mean, you disappear for two months and-" Wanda nearly dropped her cup of tea. "WHAT did you say?! Two months?! No, it can't be. You must be joking, Clint!"

The archer, who was normally the funniest Avenger (besides Spider-Man's brief appearances on the team, of course!) had an empathetic look on his face. Hawkeye was funny, but he wasn't stupid. "Wanda, you left here to visit the Sanctum Sanctorum on April 15th. It's June now. I don't know what happened to you in there, but whatever it was…when I pulled you out of the portal, you looked like you had been through hell."

"The Sanctum…Strange." Said Wanda quietly, sadly. Nevertheless, she straightened up and looked Clint in the eye, telling him the whole story of what happened, and produced a smoky image from her sleeve of her floating, fighting off monsters and bounty hunters, and finding Stark's portal.

"So, the Children of Ootah and Doctor Strange might still be alive! Will you come back to the Negative Zone with me, Hawkeye?" She concluded, throwing her hands out. Clint hesitated for a moment, but decided, as an Avenger, he had a duty to protect people, even the Sorcerer Supreme!

"What kinda half-rate hero would I be if I didn't?" Clint asked rhetorically, standing up, throwing his cowl up, strapping his quiver to his back, and grabbing his bow. "That's what I like to hear." Wanda stood up. "Avengers assemble!" She cried. "Still sounds better when Cap says it." Hawkeye quipped, and so they headed off down to the lab.

Downstairs, amidst the incredible machinery, glowing magical gifts from Thor, bubbling beakers of colourful substances, Iron Man helmets, Ant-Man helmets, and blueprints, our heroes noticed one thing. The Negative Zone portal was: "Destroyed?!" Wanda exclaimed.

She and Clint stared at the smoking, ruined portal. "JARVIS, have you let anyone into the mansion?!" Hawkeye asked. "No one has visited in the last twenty-four hours. There is also nothing on my security tapes. Simply the portal becoming damaged, seemingly from nothing, at 8:12 this morni-" JARVIS cut itself off. "Incoming call from Mister Fantastic."

"Hello?" Wanda answered, brown eyes still glued to the portal. "Hello, hello! Scarlet Witch, is that you?" Reed Richards asked on the other end. "Doctor!" By all intents and purposes, Wanda should've been relieved, but she had a feeling this call wasn't a party invitation…

"I'm calling to see if Avengers Mansion's Negative Zone gateway has been-" Mister Fantastic was cut off by Hawkeye. "Destroyed?" Clint asked. "Without a trace!" Scarlet Witch finished. "Yes!" Reed exclaimed, fear in his typically calculating voice. "I've already spoken to Nick Fury, the SHIELD portal is dead too. I'm contacting Iron Man now to let him know!" With that, he hung up.

"This is great!" Hawkeye yelled sarcastically. "Now how are we gonna get in there?" Clint asked. "The same way Strange and I got in two months ago." Scarlet Witch said, her right hand glowing dark red. "Magic!" She grabbed Clint's arm and their bodies distorted, teleporting away from Avengers Mansion, and reappearing at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange's Greenwich Village home.

When their feet hit the ground, Clint was still screaming. "AAAAAHHHH-oh. We're here. It was nothing." He said, hiding his embarrassment. A voice sounded in response, stepping from the shadows, swords sheathed on his back, carrying a platter of tea. "With all my respect, Hawkeye, I do not think you would pass a lie detector test with those words." Wong said calmly. "Tea, Wanda and guest?" Wanda shook her head and smiled at him with her usual genuine, warm smile. "No thank you, Wong. We've got to perform a ritual." She said. "Please tell me no one's getting sacrificed." Retorted Clint under his breath.

Smoke from candles, incense, and herbs filled the room, a large spellbook was floating in front of Wanda. The two Avengers were sitting across from each other on the floor. "So theatrical, so fancy!" Hawkeye joked. "Shhh." Wanda said, firing a hex bolt to knock his cowl off, which he immediately put back on. "A mirror image of this world, what happens to one will happen to none, a thousand perils lay ahead, however many can't be said. Let us take our leave!" Wanda recited, from the book, her hands glowing magenta.

Red lines darted back and forth from the candles, crossing each other until a shape Clint had never seen before was on the floor. Above it, a glorious, swirling blue portal formed. "Perfect, now we can access the Negative Zone! Let us be quick, we haven't got much time to find Doctor Strange!" With that, they stepped through the portal.

Who or what destroyed the portals? What our heroes don't know is they'll soon find out…

 _Author's note: Hi! I hope you're enjoying the story so far. I know the writing style isn't exactly conventional, but I try to make it feel like a comic from the 1960s-80s. Very theatrical, very fun to read while still telling a compelling story. Think of each chapter as an issue of a comic! I'm certainly having fun writing this. Until next time-Jess._


	3. Issue 3

The magical portal dissolved behind the two heroes, who were now standing on a patch of grey rock. Hawkeye looked up, gawking. "Boy, I thought the Negative Zone was just a rehab for depressed aliens." The purple-clad hero exclaimed dryly. "I've never seen anything like this, Wanda!"

"I know it's a lot to take in, first timer, but do keep your eyes in your head! Follow me, archer." Wanda said, the pair of them walking across the thin rock bridge. Underneath, the rock broke off, giving the illusion of tree roots torn from the ground.

"Don't look down…don't look down…don't look down…" Hawkeye repeated to himself under his breath. Finally, he indulged his inner voice and looked down to see the swirling green-blue of the Negative Zone's empty space, decorated with what looked like entire planets, mountain ranges, asteroids, moons, thick fog with extraordinary monsters lurking! Then, he looked up again, but there was no normalcy there. Just more vastness. "Hmph, and here I was thinking those Lifetime movies Jan watches went on forever…"

 **Later, within countless layers of fog…**

"I'm just sayin', teleportation would be much easier on my feet!" Hawkeye joked, keeping up his sense of humour even amongst the perils of the Negative Zone. "Hush up, will you?!" Scarlet Witch asked, holding her hands to her head, her eyes glowing red. They flickered back to their usual brown and she continued through the mist. "I sense it, it should be right up ahead…there!" Wanda pointed to a structure floating in the immenseness of space. It was a grand structure, and took the spotlight even amongst the sublime scenery. Two thin points adorned with spheres and windows, connected by a large spherical section, with thin loading docks and landing bays all around. "Prison 42." Wanda stared up at the wonder of architecture before them.

"So, this is the Richards-Stark-Pym brainchild? I gotta say, even _I'm_ impressed. A supervillain prison in a dimension devoid of all life?" Hawkeye gave an impressed scoff. He was so taken aback by Prison 42 that he didn't protest the fact that Scarlet Witch was carrying him bridal style as they flew up to one of the narrow grey landing strips, and even that was a dead giveaway that this was Reed Richard's doing! It looked like a piece of complex winding machinery, rather than a bland slab of steel.

"Devoid of all life? Now where'd ya hear that one, Barton? There's creatures in here, and us." A Southern accent sounded. "Agent Quartermain!" Hawkeye jumped out of Wanda's arms and slapped him on the back, giving him a quick hug. "When's the wedding, you two?" Scarlet Witch quipped. "It's good to see you, Clay, but we're on a time limit. I just don't know how long." Agent Quartermain nodded and straightened up. "I know why you're here." He said, a cocky tone in his voice, like he just performed the greatest feat in SHIELD history. "Follow me, somethin' I want ya to see."

The two heroes followed Agent Quartermain through the twisting, turning hallways of Prison 42. "Arc reactors?" Questioned Wanda as they stepped through into a long, dark hallway, illuminated only by the blue glow of an incredible amount of miniature arc reactors. "Shrunk by Pym Particles!" She chuckled. "Imagine Iron Man and Ant-Man bickering over how to keep this place afloat!" Hawkeye gave an exhaled chuckle. "Those eggheads bicker all the time!" Then, they came to a rather large, purple door with circuits going up and down it.

Quartermain put his hand up to the scanner, and the door opened with a hiss. Inside the well-furnished room with a twelve-level bunk bed, playing their instruments and eating Earthling snacks like potato chips, chasing each other around the room, were the Children of Ootah. Wanda's eyes widened and the knots in her stomach untied themselves when she saw that they were okay. "Children!" She exclaimed. One of the younger ones rushed up to her and hugged her. "You're okay!" The young girl exclaimed. Wanda pat her back and smiled warmly down at her, before whipping her head back to the SHIELD agent. "How did you find them?! I felt their presence, but I thought they were as lost as me!"

"Did you think all of them were actually children too?" Clint whispered to Clay. "Uh-huh." He whispered back, and looked at the Mutant sorcerer. "We heard a screech, all the way from here! It was sonic, so we tracked the waves and found them just in time. The monster's the newest inmate, but he refuses to give us his name. Probably because he can't talk." The agent smirked. "You're welcome, Scarlet Witch. They all went on about a lady in red and a wizard, and I knew it had to be you. Look at 'em, they're all happy to see you!" From the top bunk, one of the adults spoke up, looking up from his flute. "I'm not. You abandoned my people. You are no hero, Scarlet Witch, and neither is that Doctor Strange. You will pay!"

Scarlet Witch's face went red with anger. "ABANDONED YOU?!" She boomed. "We were tossed off into this disgusting place while defending you! God knows where Strange still is, and we abandoned you?! You ungrateful-" Her eyes began to glow red, but quickly returned to normal when Clint grabbed her arm, a concerned look on his face. "You'd know if I abandoned you." She concluded, and strode out of the room. "Sorry about that, some of 'em are a touch irritable. Where's the Doc? I thought he'd be with you, Avengers." Quartermain asked as they walked into the guards' room. It was a rather large room, decorated with computers everywhere, a blackish paint with green specks, and a SHIELD insignia on the floor.

"Strange is still lost somewhere in here, we're trying to find the poor guy." Hawkeye explained. "Yes, our powers are different here! We cannot teleport, we cannot perform our rituals for certain spells. I fear the worst has happened to Strange, I can't sense him anymore…" Wanda added. "I was floating here for days, but found the Avengers Mansion portal from this end. Clint pulled me out." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. The archer blushed a deep crimson. Before Vision came along, he had been in love with the Scarlet Witch.

" _This_ portal?!" Quartermain pulled a video up on the screen of the Avengers' portal. "The very same." Clint said in a faux-official tone. "Yes! We had to use my magic to get into the Negative Zone just now, we were going to use the mansion's, but it was…" On the screen, from the shadows, floated a yellowish green creature, with red clothes, boots, and gloves, and a green set of wings with green spiky shoulder pads fastened around its neck by a gold rod. "Destroyed." She finished. "Annihilus!" Quartermain and Scarlet Witch said together.

"Is someone gonna tell me what an Annihilus is?!" Hawkeye said, watching the villain on the screen hold up a golden staff with a red circle on top, and blast the portal, destroying it. "Annihilus is the ruler of the Negative Zone." Scarlet Witch began. The video now showed the Baxter Building's portal being destroyed just like Avengers Mansion's. "He's mad with power, trying to wipe out all life here, to return it to its original state. When the Negative Zone came into existence, there was nothing. Simply antimatter. The creatures that now inhabit the Negative Zone are mostly artificially bred, magical, or from Earth. Annihilus wants to wipe it all out, so only he reigns supreme!" Now, the footage showed the SHIELD Helicarrier's portal being destroyed.

Before Hawkeye could speak, a hidden door, the same color as the wall, opened. Quartermain kept his hand on his blaster, when two fresh-faced SHIELD agents stepped out of a dark corridor into the room. "Evenin, old man! We're here." One of them said. Quartermain shook the women's hands and chuckled. "Get to your sectors, agents. Tell Sitwell he can go home now." Wanda and Clint looked at each other, both clearly thinking the same thing. "Say, southerner, how did they get in? The SHIELD portal was destroyed. Don't tell me ya got Nightcrawler teleporting them in here!" Quartermain shook his head. "Hilarious, cupid. We've got a secret portal for emergencies like this. The other end is in the Pentagon. This corridor is secret for a reason, and in the heart of the prison. No one will ever find it." He said confidently. Then, his wrist communicator buzzed. "What is it, Jackson?" The blonde agent asked. A young voice sounded on the end. "We found Annihilus, he's back at his home, Arthros, sector 17A. He's got someone hostage. Blue clothes, red cape, correct me if I'm wrong but-" Wanda leaped up. "Stephen!" Her hope skyrocketed, as if she had just received a speech from Captain America. "Dock 6, GO, Avengers!" Quartermain said. Of course, in hero fashion, Wanda and Clint rushed out to find the ship.

In the next action-packed chapter of this superhero romp, see the two Avengers rescue the Sorcerer Supreme from the clutches of Annihilus! It'll be a battle for the ages, true believers!


End file.
